September 2015

“Ocean Psalms” CD-ROM was first published in 2008, but coming back to it seven years later it seems as fresh as when it was first launched at the Yale Conference on Religious Environmentalism in February/March of that year. Now an extract is to be published in the Fall 2015 issue of The Yale ISM Review [http://ismreview.yale.edu/]. The theme of the issue is “Water.”

Initially 500 copies were made of the original “Ocean Psalms” CD-ROM. Most are sold; there are just a few remaining copies left. And MysticWaters will not be producing any more copies because the wonderful art work of “Ocean Psalms” was built in a technology that is now unfortunately going away. On the website (www.oceanpsalms.com), you can still order a copy while supplies last (but note that you can only access the sample offered on the website on a desktop or laptop computer, not on mobile devices). The CD-ROM itself will continue to work on Windows or Macintosh machines into the foreseeable future.

Teresa Berger, Professor of Liturgical Studies and Thomas E. Golden Jr. Professor of Catholic Theology at Yale, wrote or assembled the texts. Lorna Collingridge set some texts to music and also provided background music as well as the photographs. Claudia Fulshaw designed the ocean-themed art work, and Carol Thomson built the CD-ROM. All the ocean and water sounds were recorded directly from nature. It is still a thrill to hear the sea when you first open the CD-ROM.

Two extracts from “Ocean Psalms” will be published in the Fall issue of The Yale ISM Review. The first, A Blessing over Waters, was written by Teresa shortly after her son was born and used as the blessing over water in his baptism. The music is based on the traditional Exultet Chant which traditionally opens the celebration of the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic liturgy. The second piece, “Hope Travels Below Sea Level,” represents an attempt to confront the horrors of the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean.